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Ellos quisieron enterrar al rey debajo de la piedra.

Ellos quisieron enterrar al rey debajo de la piedra.
They wanted to bury the king under the stone.
From Lesson 104:Irregular preterite stems·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Ellos quisieron enterrar al rey debajo de la piedra.

ellos
they
al
to the
querer
to want
debajo de
under
el rey
king
enterrar
to bury
la piedra
stone

Questions & Answers about Ellos quisieron enterrar al rey debajo de la piedra.

Why is the verb quisieron spelled so differently from querer?
Querer (to want) is one of several common verbs that are highly irregular in the preterite (completed past) tense. Instead of using the regular stem, it changes completely to quis-. It also uses a specific set of endings that do not have accent marks, making the "they" form quisieron.
Why does it say al rey instead of just el rey?
This happens for two reasons. First, because the king is a specific person receiving the action, we must use the "personal a" before him. Second, whenever the word a is directly followed by the masculine word el (the), they must combine into the single word al.
Why is enterrar (to bury) left in its infinitive dictionary form?
When you use two verbs together where the first describes an attitude or action toward the second, only the first verb gets conjugated. Since quisieron is already conjugated to match "they", the second verb enterrar stays in its unconjugated infinitive form.
Could I just say debajo la piedra instead of debajo de la piedra?
No, you need the de. In Spanish, many location words require de when you name the object they are relating to. While debajo means "underneath" on its own, to say "underneath something" you must use the full phrase debajo de.

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